Partnering with its digital fashion counterpart PLACEBO to create the mind-bending “Parallel Universe” collection.
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Gabriel Asfour, Angela Donhauser, and Adi Gil‘s cult label threeASFOUR is a true fashion innovator. Few step near its territory, daring to go where threeASFOUR go, which is often deep into conceptual realms that blend digital and technological advancements with reality, underpinned by Haute Couture craftsmanship with a focus on otherworldly, surreal, yet simultaneously natural beings, shapes, and identities. It’s something the New York-based House has explored since it was founded in 2005, and its digital fashion partner PLACEBO only enhances the ethereal creations. This, and more, now comes to play in threeASFOUR’s Fall 2023 Couture collection, titled “Parallel Universe.”
As Asfour herself put it to Vogue Runway, “This season we made an equally digital as physical collection. So every single piece that you see digitally or physically has a duplicate.” Gil added, “We want to confuse the viewers. What is real and what is not real? That is the big question here.”
And confusing it is indeed, as the 23-look collection comprises both real garments and computer-generated ones. Can you tell the difference? If not, that’s the whole point.
However, there are a few clear giveaways. The first look — a futuristic dress made from light tubes and a shell-like face shield — is real. The return of the sought-after, archival threeASFOUR circle bag (a favorite of collectors such as Byronesque), is also real. Metallic silver puffer coats and complementing puffer pants take streetwear cues into Haute Couture-meets-cyberspace universes, while the dress in Look 19 that combines sheer paneling with chrome sculptures is also real.
Likewise, we find the final look — dubbed “Chicken Pox” — being worn by Charlotte Kemp Muhl, one part of the band The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger. Here, hand-applied dots add a human touch to an alternative outfit, so surreal it almost feels IRL — because it is.